Accused admits burying Grace’s body
The man accused of murdering Grace Millane says he disposed of her body after he woke to find her dead in his room.
The Crown claims Grace, 21, was strangled to death by the man she met on Tinder in December, last year. The defence claims her death was an accident during consensual sex.
The accused, 27, who has name suppression, denies murder at his high court trial in Auckland.
Yesterday, his second police interview, recorded on December 8, was played to the jury. In it, he tells officers a very different version of the night he spent with Grace to his earlier account.
The interview begins with the accused detailing how he and Grace had matched on Tinder and organised to meet at SkyCity on December 1 at about 5pm.
He talks about their time at Andy’s Burger Bar, Mexican Cafe and the Bluestone Room and how they had a lot of cocktails, before going back to his room at the CityLife hotel. ‘‘I was quite intoxicated at that point. So was Grace. I remember leaving Bluestone and the next thing I remember is being in the room with Grace. We were kissing, we were talking and kissing more.’’
Once in the apartment, he said Grace started talking about the sexual fantasy film 50 Shades of Grey. ‘‘She said there was a few things she liked doing and she’d done with her ex-partner.’’
He said at first the pair engaged in ‘‘normal’’ sex before Grace allegedly asked him if they could ‘‘get into bondage’’.
The defendant said Grace bit him and he showed Detective Sergeant Ewen Settle a yellow bruise on his shoulder, and admitted he bit Grace on her shoulder.
‘‘I stopped at first and said ‘is this something you really want to do?’ ’’ He said she replied saying: ‘‘We’re in the moment, let’s just go with it.’’
Grace then allegedly started showing him what she wanted him to do and he said the sex became more violent. He said the pair took intimate photos of each other.
Asked if he voiced any objection to the photos, he said he didn’t, but did to the ‘‘kinky sex’’. He said he deleted the photos and the pair had more ‘‘rough sex’’.
‘‘She told me to hold her arms tighter and then she told me to hold her throat ... ’’ Afterwards, the accused said he went into the shower where he fell asleep. He later woke up and crawled into bed, believing Grace had left.
‘I was in shock’
He told police he woke the next day to find Grace lying on her back, with blood coming from her nose.
‘‘I screamed and yelled out at her. Tried to move her to see if she was awake.’’ He said he listened to her breathing but she was cold.
He panicked an dialled 111 but didn’t make the call because he thought the situation ‘‘looked bad’’. He told Settle he was ‘‘terrified and scared’’ so went to The Warehouse and bought a suitcase before returning, not knowing what to do with it. He then tried to take his own life.
He said he tried to put Grace’s body in the case, but couldn’t as he was in shock. He went out to buy cleaning products and when he returned, he messaged a friend. That ‘‘friend’’ was the young woman he went on a date with later that day at Revelry bar in Ponsonby.
The accused got emotional as he described how he put Grace’s body in the suitcase. ‘‘The whole time I kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’,’’ he said.
He then said he put that suitcase and other bags in his hire car, before he went to clean evidence, including blood, from the room.
He told police he drove to Kumeu, in West Auckland, where he bought a shovel, before stopping in the Waitakere Ranges to bury Grace. He said he thought he had left the shovel in the bush but the jury has already seen CCTV footage of the accused leaving it at Washworld at St Lukes Mall.
‘It wasn’t intentional’
He admitted disposing of her personal items in a bin at Auckland’s Albert Park, and burying her body. He agreed to show police where. When asked: ‘‘Did you kill Grace Millane?’’ he replied ‘‘no’’. He also denied intending to cause death or injury, before being arrested.
At the end of the police interview, his lawyer Ian Brookie asked why he agreed to speak to police. ‘‘Because of her family, because I want her family to know it wasn’t intentional, but I also want her family to have closure, and the other night when I was questioned by police I was shocked, and I apologise for misleading,’’ he said.
‘We would have found her’
Yesterday afternoon, the Crown called its final two witnesses including Detective Scott Beard, the officer in charge of the investigation. He said close to 60 police were working on the case on the day Grace’s body was found.
Her belongings, including her cellphone, were never recovered.
He was asked about a mystery Uber trip the accused took to Mission Bay at 5.22am on December 6. He was captured on CCTV footage leaving CityLife hotel with a sports bag and was in Mission Bay for just eight minutes before returning to the hotel at 5.58am. The purpose of the trip remains unknown.
Before the accused took police to Grace’s burial site, officers tracked his cellphone data to the Waitakere Ranges and were canvassing the area.
‘‘Our whole aim of the investigation was to find Grace and we would have found her because we were right in that area,’’ he said.
The final Crown witness was Dr Claire Healy, a forensic physician with expertise in non-fatal strangulation and domestic violence. Healy said a person’s neck could be ‘‘compressed relatively easily’’ and if pressure was maintained, it may result in death.
She said a person could lose consciousness after as little as 10 seconds, while death could occur after 90 seconds to six minutes of pressure.
When asked by Crown prosecutor Brian Dickey if blood could come from the nose as a result of pressure to the neck, Healy said she had not seen it but understood it could happen.
Th trial continues on Monday.